Well, here goes.

Well, here goes.

Today I set out to get art back into my life. I’m sure my story isn’t unique by any means. You start out aiming for somewhere completely different from where you end up in life. To clarify, my dream, my biggest dream really, was to be an artist. I was lucky enough to know several working artists when I was a teenager and throughout my twenties. I was deeply inspired by them and I would imagine myself with a studio space as amazing as theirs was or with the freedom that I imagined their lifestyle was filled with. Which brings me to my problem. I had a deep desire for stability in my life and there was no clear path telling me “Follow these steps to become an artist with steady work accompanied by steady income.” I went the safer route and chose to become an art teacher instead. Fast forward 10 years and I’ve had a steady and productive career as a teacher for at risk youth followed by my current assignment as a school administrator, but not much to show for either art instruction or a significant body of personal artwork. In the words of John Lennon, “Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans” and in my own experience, it’s absolutely true.

I’ve started this blog to force myself to create something every day this year. I don’t expect everything I produce to be amazing, I’m just shooting to get my pencil on the page and paint on my brush again, and we’ll see where that takes me.

Here’s what I’m using today.

I decided to go with “The Art Journal” to start with this year because I was short on time and it was available at Barnes and Noble. The pages are heavyweight so you can use a variety of mediums and I don’t expect any bleeding. I prefer to use Pilot G2 Pens for drawing simply because I like the way they feel, I added Sharpie Art Pens to have a larger variety of colors, and who doesn’t like Sharpies?